Enjoyed your story immensely, Eric. I\’m glad I was able to read it in its entirety, as I missed that edition of Analog and only got to read the beginning on the magazine\’s website. Now I know the rest of the story…!

Hi
I followed a link from a philosphy blog. Thanks I really liked the story. Having not read much Sci Fi of late I was under the wrong impression that it had petered out since the golden age. Your story just seems to fit right in with so many classics of that era.

Not being mormon, I may have some misunderstandings on mormon beleifs. I thought there were many worlds with there own god in mormon theology. If so then why can’t the Leviathan be there Father/mother God?

Anyway thanks for the story It has made me want to start reading modern sci fi.

I loved Eric James Stone\’s story also. However, I want to clear up a misunderstanding of Mormon doctrine. We do believe in mutliple worlds. But we believe that one God created all of them. Therefore, Leviathan is definitely a rival god to the divine being that the branch president worships.

My favorite part of the story is when the branch president goes to the little swale and asks why it joined the church in the first place and the swale explains that it does not want Leviathan to be its god. I totally agree! Why would I worship a being who cares nothing for me but only about herself? I don\’t care how old or how big she is. In Mormon theology, we worship Jesus Christ, who does care about beings who are smaller and weaker than He is. In fact, He cared so much that He suffered and died to save us. I think Eric did a great job of contrasting the two kinds of god, without being preaching or pushy.

WOW!! Did not expect my morning to go like this…I started by reading the story in the Daily Herald about you and your writing. Decided to take a look at your website and the story. An hour or so later, I haven\’t even read the obits or my email or gone \”farmin\’\” on FaceBook. :-) Besides knowing how much I enjoyed the story, I felt something more personal happening to me. As I realized this, I could hear a movie my son was watching and a choir was singing Rock of Ages. From there my thoughts turned to \”someone is trying to tell me something\” I know what it is, and then the words to Yes, Jesus loves me were filling my heart…I am weak but He is strong!

I sympathize most with the Doctor, which does not mean I did not enjoy the story. On the contrary, I liked it very much. I wish I had faith, but my unassailable questions leave only room for some degree of doubt in everything. In any case, I understand that the Church was just the vessel in which your story was told, a precept highlighted by one one of my favorite speculative authors, Mr. Card; in no way did I feel you were preaching at me, but still you managed to translate a compelling story of heart and mind.

Great story. It presents a scenario of where a part of a younger human race presents new ideals and ideas onto another culture that has existed for longer than the human race has ever existed and the problems it can cause.

The same goes for here on Earth and it\’s happening right now and it happened in the past and it will continue to happen throughout the future.

From the failure to understand the basics of evolution (populations evolve, not individuals), to Dr. Merced\’s stock atheist character, to the deus ex machina ending, I could not find much to enjoy in this work. Congratulations on the Nebula, but I don\’t understand what it was about this that garnered such an honor.

You’re welcome to your opinion of the story, of course, but I just wanted to point out that while you’re right about the way evolution works with DNA-based life on Earth, that is not the only form of evolution theoretically possible. With Leviathan, I had in mind a sort of Lamarkian evolution, in which environmental pressures and random fluctuations caused her to grow from a mindless, self-perpetuating pattern of magnetism and plasma into intelligent being, and she acquired traits that she was then able to pass on to her offspring (once she figured out how to create offspring.) If it helps, think of her as more like a self-modifying software program than a carbon-based lifeform.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply, Mr. Stone. I still have my concerns with the somewhat heavy-handed way you dealt with the themes of your story, but that is an interesting take on evolution for a non-carbon-based lifeform.

Brilliant! After reading it, I immediately read it out loud to my wife.

Your only works I’ve read are this and “They Do It With Robots”: I really love the way both explore interesting emotional material, and the world-building highlights that rather than becoming too much of a priority of its own.

My major complaint with Card is how much doctrine and cynicism (and cynicism over doctrine) that he manages to stuff into his work. But my favorite Card book is \”Saintspeak,\” go figure.

I am amazed at how incredibly REAL this story is. Nothing is contrived. The pieces fit together and need each other, or the story couldn\’t work. I\’d love to read all of the boilerplate you deleted on the way to the final version.

This story would work if the hero were a preacher of another faith, but works better in that he is LDS — thus completely a volunteer, yet unflinching when it\’s time to grab the slightest chance of rescuing someone that he hardly knew, just because it was the right thing to do.

My favorite character here is Leviathan. At each step of the way, she is doing the right thing as she sees it, including changing her mind.